Liquid Lockers

Liquid Lockers enable you to lock governance tokens while maintaining liquidity and voting power. You deposit tokens and receive liquid sdTokens in return.

The Problem

Traditional veToken systems force a trade-off:

• Lock on the native protocol: Earn yield and voting power, but lose liquidity for up to 4 years
• Use a yield aggregator: Maintain some liquidity, but forfeit governance power

The Solution

Liquid Lockers provide both. When you deposit tokens, you receive sdTokens that offer:

• Yield — Protocol rewards from the underlying token
• Liquidity — Trade sdTokens via DEX pools at any time
• Governance — Vote on underlying protocol proposals
• Vote incentives — Earn rewards from protocols seeking votes
• Cross-chain access — Available on multiple networks

How It Works

1. You deposit governance tokens (e.g., CRV) into the Liquid Locker
2. The locker locks tokens for maximum duration and continuously re-locks
3. You receive sdTokens (e.g., sdCRV) representing your position
4. Stake sdTokens on Stake DAO for rewards, or provide liquidity in DEX pools

The locked balance enables boosted yields for strategies built on top of Stake DAO.

Voting Power

sdToken holders can vote on underlying protocol proposals through vote replication. This makes you eligible for vote incentives offered by protocols and DAOs.

Vote incentives are distributed every 2 weeks. You can also delegate voting power to Stake DAO for automatic incentive collection.

vlSDT Boost

Holding vlSDT boosts your voting power. The formula mirrors Curve's CRV reward logic:

Where:

• UVP: User Voting Power
• TLVP: Total Liquid Locker Voting Power
• UAB: User Adjusted Balance of staked sdToken
• UB: User Balance of staked sdToken
• TB: Total Balance of staked sdToken
• UV: Your effective boost (your vlSDT balance, minus any boost you've sold, plus any boost you've bought)
• TV: Total vlSDT supply

Example

Three users each deposit 500 CRV and receive 500 sdCRV:

Bob's veSDT doubles his effective voting power and vote incentive earnings. Alice still achieves the equivalent of 2-year locked veCRV voting power without any veSDT.

Why sdTokens?

Without any veSDT, sdToken holders receive voting power equivalent to a 2-year lock. This matches the average voting power of a 4-year lock that decays over time—but sdTokens maintain constant power through continuous re-locking.

Cross-Chain Support

For protocols with veTokens on multiple chains, Stake DAO provides Liquid Lockers on each supported network. You benefit from boosted yields regardless of which chain you use.

Getting Started

See the staking guide for step-by-step instructions.